Hey,

I am looking for thoughts and opinions on mouning a winch in the bed for loading cargo into the truck and possibly a trailer behind the truck one winch to do both jobs

looking at a 4000LB or so with roller faillead, 12v,

i have seen them mounted on a headache rack with the winch centered at box top height. i am thinking more along the lines of bed mounted with a custom mounting plate in a U or C fastion that has the legs goint out towards the back of the truck. would it be better to go through the bex and into factory holes in the frame or maybe remove the bed bolts at the front and use them holes withsome grade 8's and then the legs into the cross ribs with some grade 8's aswell with plates underside to spread the bolt pull?

largest forseen load would be a derby car onto a car trailer

Thoughts?

Thanks guys
Joe

 

sounds like a good idea to me... i would personally pull the bed off and build a mounting plate under the bed a lot like a goosneck hitch. then you wouldnt need to worry about stressing the body bolts. do something like bolt a piece of 1/4", maybe 3/8 depending how overkill you wanna go, on top of the frame rails connecting them. know what i mean? i dont know how to better explain it

-cutts-

 

Yeah, cut a hole in your bed and mount your winch to the frame.

 

I mount mine in the bed. What I use for moderate pulling is 3/16 channel (3" w x 1.5 h) and mount it to the frame with (2) 1/2" grade 8 bolts on each side. Then I mount the winch to that.

I usually build a flatbed, you having a regular bed which means cutting a hole and dealing with the cable on the bed edge or tailgate. When I worry about the cable against metal, I just put down a piece of pt 2x4 on the bed edge and let the cable eat that up.

> largest forseen load would be a derby car onto a car trailer

Cheap $70.00 6,000 pound winch from Northern Tools or anywhere else will handle that. Though I would recommend the Warn 3700, the Warn 1700 is too funky with the switch set up since it is meant for an ATV and I like a 12 foot remote lead so I can be out of the way of a snapped line.

Using the cheap 6k winch pulling logs and trees down, I have buried my wheel chocks 100% into the mud when I didn't have teh front chained, so the setup (cheap 12V winch and cross bar of 3/16 channel) described wil handle a car with no problem.

The good thing is many Ford frames used a folded sheetmetal frame for the bed exactly the same dimensions of the 3/16 3" channel (probably a carry over from the Model T) so you do not have to mod your bed to use it if you position it correctly.

 

Rebocardo, thanks for the info the sounds quite close to what i had in mind.

I was looking at a mile marker PE 3500 or PE4500 to use, wanting power in/out and auto load holding brake. also i have read good about the milemarkers aswell as warn too.

Thanks guys
Joe

 

In the FWIW, when bolting the channel to the bed, I torque it until I see the channel splay a little. Then I run a small tack weld on each 1/2" bolt, under the nut, especially one holding the winch on so noone steals it. If you load the bed with stuff a lot, make a small 1" x 1/8 tube cage around the winch and then a wood box to throw over it to protect the winch. For my next winch I bought a Herse/Cole (sp?) cut off switch to mount in my glovebox good for 500 amps so no moron/thief with a cord can run the winch and to prevent accidential usage. Think I bought it from Summit.

What I like to do, is run two nuts on the bolt, then on the last one, drill through it and put a cotter pin so both can't back off. That way you do not weaken the first nut and still have the "four threads" after the nut for proper torque load.